What began as a rant about (the lack of) online gaming has turned into a PC vs. console debate. In all honesty this is perfectly fine since the main reason people play computer games instead of console ones is simply for the updates, expansions and the ability to play over the internet. Despite all the bugs, forced games and all, I would much rather deal with these things than have to give up my extra perks.

I have not ever been a huge supporter of console games, but like the rest of you I have owned my share of them. More often than not I buy a game or two in spurts and my collection never exceeds 20 or so. Comparitively my computer collection is often much smaller since I cannot maintain more than 5 or so on my computer at a given time. This inludes all the expansions, patches and add-ons that come with them of course. Considering that one of the games on my system currently is Half-Life I'm sure you will all realize what I mean by this as there are at least 20 mods available for me to use.

The difference between the two is primarily the difference between in-depth games and plug-and-play ones. Consoles market to those who want a quick fix. There is no install time and the only preparations that are required is to tear off the plastic wrapping and open up the container. After that you plop it in and head off to the races, immediately enjoying your new game. Often the game gets played for days, weeks and sometimes even months at a time. But sooner or later it ends up on the side collecting dust. Your $50 investment earned you a good 40 hours of gameplay (if you were lucky) and now it is time to move on with your life.

Computer games, on the other hand, involve much more commitment. You have to make sure that your system is up to spec and can even run the game first. Then you need to make sure that you have the necessary space to install it. Certain specialized settings and drivers must often be configured/installed before the game will even run. So far you will be lucky to even see the opening sequence, let alone start playing. This does not even take into account the time needed to memorize the key setups for your controls and customize the video/sound settings. Often games puchased will immediately require a patch, so you might as well download those right away as well.

As you can easily see the comparison is greatly in favor of consoles at this point simply because of its no nonsense approach. They provide instant gratification and the only upgrades you will need would be a new memory card, controller or the like. Things that can be used with other games as well.

Now why would anyone even bother with a computer game given this huge disadvantage? The fact remains that no matter how good a console game is, it is limited to what comes in the box. There are no add-ons without buying another game or product. Computer games offer a myriad of choices, customizations and downloaables often for free. The community often creates their own line of products to enhance the game and before long you have much, much more than what originally came in your little box.

The biggest advantage for computer games is without a doubt the ability to play with other gamers from around the world. Consoles do not provide this option as of yet and this is where they stand apart. So even if consoles sell more units and produce larger numbers than PC gamers they often end up collecting dust while PC games keep the players busy for years at a time.

Some of you may jump on this and say that from that comment alone consoles will be around forever since they have a better turn-around rate for sales. Sure that is a very valid point, but think about the money that EverQuest pulled and continues to pull in. This single game along with its expansions has sold more copies in such a short period of time than most would ever dream about. And no doubt with every expansion that continues to be released there will be millions of gamers picking it up as soon as it is released. Still not quite the same numbers as a console, but the game will always maintain its player base, something that a console game will never ensure.

For the sake of comparison let's assume that for every single XBox sold that 80% of all owners will purchase Halo for it. I mean any fool who reads a review and doesn't purchase it for that system is just stupid, but there are stupid or just otherwise uninformed people in the world, so we must take them into account none-the-less. So if MS reaches their 1M goal by the end of the year that is 800k of Halo being sold. Not bad, right? In the long term 50% of those people will have traded or stopped playing Halo after 2 months. The remaining 50% will likely continue to play it with friends and attempt to master all the solo, coop and LAN levels. Still that is 400k players. Just as with any online game, the majority will never play LAN due to its complexties. So let's drop that figure another 50% down to 200k. Still, not too bad.

During this time more and more gamers will continue to purchase and play Halo, so that original 50% that dropped out will constantly be revived and the second 50% will constantly be dropping out, so let's assume that these two will cancel out one another. It is a mathematical given that beginning figures will out do the ending ones, so taking all of 2002 into account it is a safe bet that sales will slow and the number of copies will slow down also. So for the sake of simplicity let's just assume an average and constant increase in the market. All things together that is a total player base of 250k, none of which are online. How many of that number are in your area? Likely not as many as you would like. So the longevity of Halo on the XBox is limited already.

Now if Halo was released for the Windows/Macintosh platform as promised with online support, we all know that it would move about 500k copies within the first week. This number would gradually reach the 1M mark and continue to rise over time. Of those players about 50% might not be online or just not that often, so we will exclude them from our figures. The remaning 50% will plays at least once per week, for at least 3-4 months. The hardcore players (10-20%) will be on 24/7 for the next year at least. Right there alone is 100k players at any given time and that is just limited to the serious gamers. If you don't believe me, just go check out the number of players on Won.net playing Counter-Strike right now.

Even if there is a monthly fee required for Halo, past the initial 3 month trial or such, I'm sure that the majority will already be addicted and continue to play. This would ensure that gamers continue playing and providing support, financial of course, for Halo. Every expansion or add-on would only increase this and they could always give another 3 month online trial with the purchase of it. Still more money in the bank. Given the strong online communities I could imagine a ton of mods being available not to mention single player episodes. So as it stands now the average gamer will play it and move on, but the serious gamer will be playing this for years at a time.

Given this type of commitment from players, a solid game with developer support can keep raking in the money for years at a time. Something that a console cannot manage for the same length of time. All in all, a computer game is made for those gamers who want more for their money. As we are mostly computer gamers, this is an easy reason to see why we dislike the one-dimensional aspects of the console version of Halo, despite its strengths. No matter how good it is there is no chance that it will ever be anything greater, and that is the main reason why some of us are upset.

Sincerely,
Pimpy™

: Lies, damned lies, and statistics? If this is the Tru7h,
: what about the secret stuff?

Area 51 alien tech derived shielding technology. That is the secret. shhh!

Do you just not read magazines any more? This add has been running for a while in several different mags (popular science and Rolling stone come to mind) And the whole army of one add has been around for almost a year I think.

-Jackolantern

ps:I was going to ask "have you been living in a cave?" but thought that people that are currently living in caves probably are paying a great deal of attention to what the US army is doing

acrappa wrote on Tuesday, 11/27/2001 - 1:39 am:

: Just a quick poll: who has or is going to be buying an
: Xbox?
:
: Don't reply if you aren't buying one or if you just want
: to start another platform war.

acrappa wrote on Tuesday, 11/27/2001 - 1:39 am:

: Just a quick poll: who has or is going to be buying an
: Xbox?
:
: Don't reply if you aren't buying one or if you just want
: to start another platform war.

__________________________
Ain't got no last words to say
Yellow streak right up my spine
The gun in my mouth was real
And the taste blew my mind

acrappa wrote on Tuesday, 11/27/2001 - 4:39 am:

: Just a quick poll: who has or is going to be buying an
: Xbox?
:
: Don't reply if you aren't buying one or if you just want
: to start another platform war.

--
Ferrex (Dead)
Coffee Engineer, Vehicle Logistics
Bungie Studios

Been enjoying it ever since. Early on after the Bungie sellout, I evaluated if I could enjoy the new premier platform for Bungie games. What I decided that I could, and that it would likely be the best platform of all the consoles. I have been pleasantly delighted with it ever since.

acrappa wrote on Tuesday, 11/27/2001 - 2:39 am:

: Just a quick poll: who has or is going to be buying an
: Xbox?
:
: Don't reply if you aren't buying one or if you just want
: to start another platform war.

Oh! They have the internet on computers now! - Homer J Simpson

As they say.

pimpy™ wrote on Wednesday, 11/28/2001 - 4:02 am:

: Just curious to know if using an application like Arcade
: is worth it with Halo or not. From what was reported a very
: large bandwidth is required to make gameplay smooth, so I am
: interested to hear reports from anyone who has tried it
: already. Any and all information that you can provide would
: be a great help for the rest of us that still haven't had a
: chance to test/play Halo over the internet yet.
:
: Sincerely,
Pimpy™

I would try it out, but I use a mac, so as of now, I cant even find out for myself. boohoo...

Your efforts are appreciated :)
You can tell, because we're all still here.